The radical neo-liberal movement as a hegemonic force in Australia,

Transcription

1 University of Wollongong Theses Collections University of Wollongong Theses Collection University of Wollongong Year 2004 The radical neo-liberal movement as a hegemonic force in Australia, Damien C. Cahill University of Wollongong Cahill, Damien C, The radical neo-liberal movement as a hegemonic force in Australia, , PhD thesis, History and Politics Program, University of Wollongong, This paper is posted at Research Online.

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3 The Radical Neo-liberal Movement as a Hegemonic Force in Australia, A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY from UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG by DAMIEN CONNOLLY CAHILL B.A. (Hons) University of Wollongong HISTORY AND POLITICS PROGRAM 2004

4 CERTIFICATION I, Damien Connolly Cahill, declare that this thesis, submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy, in the History and Politics Program, University of Wollongong, is wholly my own work, unless otherwise referenced or acknowledged. The document has not been submitted for qualifications at any other academic institution... Damien Connolly Cahill 24 th June 2004

5 iii Contents Introduction 1 1. Hegemony, Class Conflict and Elite Social Movements Radical Neo-liberal Ideology Radical Neo-liberalism as an Elite Social Movement The Hegemonic Context: Conflict and Change within Australian Capitalism The Radical Neo-liberal Movement and the Capitalist Class The Radical Neo-liberal Movement and the Mass Media The Radical Neo-liberal Movement and the State 272 Conclusion 318 Bibliography 323

6 iv FIGURES 1.1 Levels of Hegemony 40 TABLES 6.1 Fairfax Media Coverage of Select Radical Neo-liberal Movement Organisations Radical Neo-liberals as Columnists Radical Neo-liberals as Federal Public Servants Radical Neo-liberal Activists Within the Coalition Parties 293

7 v Abbreviations AACF ACC ACCI ACM ACTU AFE AFEF AIPP ALP AMIC AMWSU ARTF ARTIO BCA CAI CIA CIS CoPS COSBOA CRA ETU Australian Association for Cultural Freedom Australian Chamber of Commerce Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Australian Chamber of Manufacturers Australian Council of Trade Unions Australian Federation of Employers Australian Free Enterprise Foundation Australian Institute for Public Policy Australian Labor Party Australian Mining Industry Council Amalgamated Metal and Shipwrights Union Australian Road Transport Federation Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation Business Council of Australia Confederation of Australian Industry Central Intelligence Agency Centre for Independent Studies Centre of Policy Studies Council of Small Business Associations Australia Conzinc Riotinto of Australia Electrical Trades Union

8 vi IEA ICI IPA (NSW) IPA IPE LDRTA ML MTIA NBAC NFF NPP NTF SEQEB WMC Institute of Economic Affairs Imperial Chemical Industries Institute of Public Affairs (NSW) Institute of Public Affairs Institute for Private Enterprise Long Distance Road Transport Association Mitchell Library Metal Trades Industry Association Noel Butlin Archives Centre National Farmers Federation National Priorities Project National Transport Federation South East Queensland Electricity Board Western Mining Corporation

9 vii Abstract This thesis examines the radical neo-liberal movement commonly labelled the new right as a hegemonic force in Australia between 1976 and It argues that the movement, through its think tanks, greatly assisted the process whereby the Australian state and economy were reorganised. Such assistance took the form of disorganising opponents of neo-liberalism; helping to shift elite debate to the Right; and offering a language and framework for critiquing the welfare state. It is argued that, in doing this, the radical neo-liberal movement acted as a vanguard for neoliberal hegemony in Australia. The thesis critically analyses the ideology of the radical neo-liberal movement as well as discussing the ways in which radical neo-liberals cohered as a movement. It assesses the relationship between the movement and the capitalist class, the commercial media and the Australian state, all of which are key sites and agents of hegemonic struggle. It is argued that the effectiveness of the radical neo-liberal movement was primarily due to the links it was able to forge with key fractions of Australian capital. These fractions predominantly finance, mining and monopoly capital were also the ones that mobilised to bring about the neo-liberal reorganisation of the Australian state and economy. In acting as a vanguard movement for neo-liberal hegemony, the radical neo-liberals supported the interests of these capitalist fractions. By understanding the radical neo-liberals as a movement, this thesis examines the way in which a non-class group had an impact that was class relevant.

10 viii Published Material Some of the material in this thesis was included in articles and chapters published during my doctoral candidacy. My early thoughts on the relationship between radical neo-liberal activists and hegemony were developed in Damien Cahill, Neo-liberal Intellectuals as Organic Intellectuals? Some Notes on the Australian Context, Paper Presented to the APSA Conference, ANU, 2000, which was published in the refereed proceedings of the APSA 2000 Conference. My analysis of the movement s new class discourse, which grew out of my honours thesis, was published in Damien Cahill, The Australian Right s New Class Discourse and the Construction of the Political Community in Ray Markey (ed.), Labour and Community: Historical Essays, University of Wollongong Press, Wollongong, 2001, pp and Damien Cahill, Why the Right Uses Class Against the Left, Arena Journal, No. 16, 2000/1, pp My thoughts on the mass media and hegemony were first developed in Damien Cahill, The Anti-WEF Protests and the Media, Social Alternatives, Vo. 20, January 2001, pp The broad argument of this thesis was first published in Damien Cahill, Funding the Ideological Struggle, Overland, 168. Spring 2002, pp In the following forthcoming publications I first the notions of One Nation and Two Nations hegemonic strategies and their relationship to the radical neo-liberal movement: Damien Cahill, New Class Discourse and the Construction of Left-wing Elites in Marian Sawer and Barry Hindess (eds), Us and Them: Anti-Elitism in Australia, API Network, St. Lucia, 2004 and Damien Cahill, Contesting Hegemony: The Radical Neo-liberal Movement and the Ruling Class in Australia in Nathan Hollier (ed), Ruling Australia: The Power, Privilege and Politics of the New Ruling Class, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2004.

11 Much of the broad argument of the thesis was first developed in this published material. ix

12 x Acknowledgements There are many who deserve thanks for facilitating the completion of this thesis. Thanks to Anthony Ashbolt, the primary supervisor of my thesis, for getting me over the line and for teaching me that an academic is one who is active and engaged. To Stephen Reglar, my secondary supervisor, whose insightful comments have shaped more than just this thesis - thankyou Thanks to those who read and commented on sections of this thesis: Kylie Smith; Susan Engel; Alistair Davidson; Andrew Wells; Michele Ford; Tim Cahill; Rowan Cahill; Erin Cahill; Pamela Cahill and Angela Pratt. Thanks also to those who gave of their time and offered valuable insights that helped me develop my arguments: Peter Sheldon; Andrew Gamble; Diane Stone; Sharon Beder; Terry Irving; Marx Rix and Susan Dodds. Thanks to those whose friendship and support helped me through the thesis process: Kazuhiro Monden; Deborah Gough; Karl James; Charles Hawksley; Jen Hawksley; Cath Ellis; Cath Clegg; Calum MacLeod; Jason Hart; Sussanah Rizzo; Jasmin Sydee; Vicki Crinis; Natalie Peters; Ben Maddison; John McQuilton; Becky Walker; Renee Kyle; Ben Langford; Pat Brownlee; Catriona Elder; Jo Coghlan; Rob Carr; Kristy Muir; John Bentley; Julia Martinez; Feargus Manning; Penny Hood; Rodrigo Guttierez; Carol Berry; Eugenia Demuro and anyone I have inadvertently left out. Thank you to the staff of the Noel Butlin Archives Centre and the Mitchell Library. Thank you to all of those who gave permission for their interviews and correspondence to be used in this thesis. Thanks to all of my students: even if you have only learnt half as much from me as I have learnt from you, then I will have achieved something. To my colleagues, thank you for your patience. To Barbara and John Badham, thank you for your support. To my family, thank you for your constant strength, support and encouragement. And to Vanessa Badham how can I encapsulate the enormity of your contribution, other than to say thanks, baby.

13 1 Introduction Beginning in the 1970s under the Whitlam Labor government, and growing in both pace and intensity during the 1980s and 1990s, a radical restructuring of the Australian state and economy took place. The institutions of arbitration and tariff protection the products of Australia s turn-of-the-century class compromise which had underpinned Australia s economic development during the twentieth century, were gradually dismantled. Concurrently, the post World War Two class compromise, which had bound the leaderships of both the domestic working and capitalist classes to a form of Keynesian welfare capitalism, was abandoned. The new configuration of the state and economy that emerged out of this restructuring can be broadly categorised as a form of neo-liberal capitalism. In order to be successful, and in order not to rely upon mere force for its imposition, any such restructuring requires a concomitant reorganisation of social relations. It requires the disorganisation, or neutering, of major opposition and the construction of an alliance of social forces committed to its continuation or maintenance. The legitimacy of such a restructuring also entails a reorganisation of common sense : the discursive arrangements that mediate people s understanding of the world, and their understanding of the roles of themselves and others within it. In other words, the neo-liberal restructuring of the state and economy that occurred in Australia from the 1970s onwards entailed a corresponding attempt to secure hegemony. This thesis analyses the contribution of one group the group commonly referred to as the new right to the struggles that occurred in Australia, until 1996, to secure hegemony for neo-liberal capitalism. The thesis argues that the new right is best understood as an elite social movement with a specific ideological character the radical neo-liberal movement. From its emergence in the mid-1970s, this radical

14 2 neo-liberal movement attempted to shift the terrain of political debate in Australia, to a position more sympathetic with its ideology: that the market, when free from state imposed constraints, was the most efficient, and most moral, way of producing and distributing most goods and services in society whether they be consumer items or public goods such as education and healthcare and, further, that the Keynesian welfare state constituted an inefficient and unjust form of social regulation. Think tanks and groups such as the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), the Centre of Policy Studies (CoPS), the Australian Institute of Public Policy (AIPP), the H. R. Nicholls Society, Centre 2000, Crossroads, the Tasman Institute, the Institute for Private Enterprise (IPE), and the Australian Adam Smith Club, provided the radical neo-liberal movement with its organisational backbone. Employing simplistic dichotomies and emotive language, the radical neo-liberals mounted a concerted attack upon the Keynesian welfare state, socialism, social justice and their defenders. As an alternative they offered a reified model of capitalism in which the state acts as nightwatchman and individuals realise their liberty through voluntary market exchanges. In examining the relationship between the radical neo-liberal movement and struggles for neo-liberal hegemony in Australia, this thesis offers three broad scholarly contributions: it is the only currently existing analysis to draw upon the notion of elite social movements as a way of understanding what has commonly been referred to as the new right in Australia; it provides a framework for assessing the impact and influence of the radical neo-liberal movement.; and it offers a contribution to the literature on social movement theory, hegemony and neoliberalism. In understanding the new right as an elite social movement, this thesis clarifies some of the confusions inherent in the notion of the new right. The idea of the new right has always been an imprecise one. There is no agreed upon definition. Where agreement exists, it is that the think tanks and forums already mentioned are a

15 3 crucial feature of the new right, and that, as the term itself suggests, there is something new about them, yet they are also fundamentally grounded in a rightwing ideology. What marks the group of academics, journalists, and businesspeople who congregated around the IPA, CIS, H. R. Nicholls Society and other similar organisations as new, and what defines them ideologically, is their radical critique of the welfare state, and their concrete proposals for its dismantling. As Marian Sawer argued in 1982: they are united in the belief that state intervention to promote egalitarian social goals has been responsible for the present economic malaise, and has represented an intolerable invasion of individual rights. 1 There are those who viewed the welfare state and Keynesian economic planning as inhibiting Australia s economic development, who sought to deregulate capitalist markets and impose market mechanisms for the delivery of some public goods such as education and health care and yet who still advocated a strong and positive role for the state in the management of the economy and the provision of services. In contrast, the groups and individuals who are the subject of this thesis are defined by their absolute and unshakable belief in the ability of unfettered markets to create a harmonious, prosperous and moral society. While the former might be characterised as adhering to a version of neo-liberalism, the latter embody its more fundamentalist expression: radical neo-liberalism. A lack of clarity has also characterised discussion of the new right s organisational character. Numerous journalists have written of individuals being members or holding membership of the new right, as if it were a constituted organisation or a 1 Marian Sawer, Introduction in Marian Sawer (ed), Australia and the New Right, George Allen and Unwin, North Sydney, 1982, p. viii.

16 4 political party. 2 Others have defined the new right via its think tanks, 3 sometimes describing them as interest groups. 4 If radical neo-liberal think tanks are interest groups, then they are unique among the category. Radical neo-liberal think tanks do not engage in traditional lobbying, nor are they interested in the pragmatic compromises characteristic of interest group intervention in the policy process. In addition, although they are distinct organisations, radical neo-liberal think tanks are linked by a common ideology, by an overlapping leadership and participant base and by their emergence in a particular historical moment, in response to specific economic and political conditions and with common goals and common enemies. Furthermore, although think tanks are an important vehicle for radical neo-liberal ideology, radical neo-liberals have also acted outside of the their confines. David Kemp comes closer to the mark by describing what he calls radical liberalism, as linked in a nationwide network challenging traditional conservative centres of power'. 5 The notion of a network, however, fails to capture the dynamism and energy of the radical neo-liberals, nor does it do justice to the ways in which they contested power, engaged in hegemonic struggle and acted both within and outside the traditional policy-making structures of political parties and the bureaucracy. It is only by describing the radical neo-liberals acting as a movement that all of these features can be accommodated. The term radical neo-liberal movement, then, 2 See for example: Mike Taylor, New Right poses dilemma for employers but the answer may be found in Marx, Australian Financial Review, 3 rd September, 1986, p. 8; Mike Steketee, Desperation and despair in heartland of Liberals, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 nd April, 1989, pp. 8-9; Pamela Williams, New Right exerts its power on Liberals, Australian Financial Review, 17 th December, 1987, p. 10; Steve Burrell, The New Right threat: MP warns, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 th October, 1986, p. 1; Amanda Buckley, Liberal rifts curb celebration, Australian Financial Review, 29 th January, 1987, p For example: Bette Moore and Gary Carpenter, Main Players in Ken Coghill (ed), The New Right s Australian Fantasy, McPhee Gribble, Fitzroy, 1987, pp ; David McKnight, The New Right: A Consumer s Guide, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 th September, 1986, pp. 41, 45; Laurie Aarons, Here Come the Uglies: The New Right who they are and what they Think, Red Pen Publications, Forest Lodge, Trevor Matthews, Interest Groups in Rodney Smith, Politics in Australia, 2 nd edition, Allen and Unwin, St. Leonards, 1993, pp David Kemp, Liberalism and Conservatism in Australia since 1944 in Brian Head and James Walter (eds), Intellectual Movements and Australian Society, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1988, p. 340.

17 5 captures both the ideological and organisational novelty of what has commonly been referred to as the new right. Under such a description, radical neo-liberals become participants in the movement, or movement activists, rather than members of the new right. This is not however to deny that there have been debates, conflicts and differences of opinion within the radical neo-liberal movement. Most important among these has been that while some radical neo-liberals adopt a libertarian position on social and moral issues, most embrace social and moral conservatism. These tensions are largely kept in check through the movement activists shared commitment to radical neo-liberalism and the solidarity they derive from having common enemies: the Left in general and the defenders of the welfare state, arbitration and tariffs. More important has been the contradiction between such a conservative morality and the radical neo-liberal commitment to a minimal state. These issues will be explored further in Chapters Two and Three, but it is enough to say for now that one of the strengths of the movement has been the extent to which such contradictions have been either masked or accommodated and reconciled within a radical neo-liberal framework. In understanding the radical neo-liberals as a movement, there are clear associations with the new social movements such as the environment movement, the feminist movement, the peace movement and the gays rights movement which arose in the late 1960s and which many theorists heralded as superseding labour as an emancipatory social agent. There is however a crucial difference between the radical neo-liberal movement and the new social movements, which, although discussed in more detail in Chapters One and Three, is worth noting here because of its importance for understanding the dynamics of the radical neo-liberals. The fundamental difference between the two is that whereas the new social movements have been rooted in resistance and popular protest, the radical neo-liberal movement is a fundamentally elitist movement with a small social base and clear links with sections of the capitalist class. It is therefore as an elite social movement that the radical neo-liberals are best described. Although some Australian scholars have

18 6 labelled the new right as a movement, there has not been any thoroughgoing discussion of what this might mean. This thesis will, therefore, partly be an essay in definition. Many claims have been made regarding the influence and impact of the new right and its think tanks. Journalists have often ascribed strong influence to the radical neo-liberals. For example, in 1986, The Australian's Greg Sheridan, in an article on the new right wrote that they have started to win the battle of ideas, 6 and in the same year David McKnight claimed that it was the new right which had de-railed Labor's successful consensus style of politics, putting in doubt a third term of Labor federal government. 7 In The Challenge For Unions: Workers Versus The New Right, John Wishart endorses the notion that the radical neo-liberals exert considerable influence: Through their network, and with the unfailing assistance of most Australian media outlets, they [The New Right], have shifted public opinion towards support for 'user-pays' education and health care, labour market de-regulation, and the sale of government assets and services to private capital. 8 Similarly, Marian Sawer argues that free-market think tanks have, played a significant role in influencing public opinion 9 and Michael Pusey states: No one can doubt the tremendous success that the New Right American and British policy organisations and think tanks have had first 6 Greg Sheridan, 'Just Who Are The New Right?', Weekend Australian, September 6-7, 1986, p.17 7 David McKnight, 'The New Right: A Consumer's Guide, p John Wishart, The Challenge for Unions: Workers versus the New Right, Left Book Club Cooperative Ltd, Sydney, 1992, p Marian Sawer, Public Perceptions of Multiculturalism, Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies, Canberra, 1990, p.1.

19 7 in cloning themselves in Australia, and then in reorganising the public policy agenda along Anglo-American free market lines. 10 Ian Marsh, who has written extensively on Australian think tanks, concludes that the neo-liberal or new right group of think tanks have been spectacularly successful in popularising their ideological agenda. 11 More recently, Philip Mendes argues that: Their political influence over both ALP and Liberal Party governments has been significant. They have played an important role in shaping a harsher Australian social policy agenda that is less sympathetic to the welfare state, welfare producers and welfare beneficiaries. 12 In contrast, Roy Green and Andrew Wilson virtually dismiss the influence of the radical neo-liberals during the Accord years, arguing that they were:...an ill-defined and rather marginal force, capable of much noise, but lacking really solid support in the organisation of mainstream capital. More important was the opposition from modernising forces favouring deregulation grouped around the Business Council of Australia, whose primary impetus came from the need to orchestrate pressure on the Accord Michael Pusey, Economic Rationalism in Canberra: A Nation Building State Changes its Mind, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991, p Ian Marsh, The Development and Impact of Australia s Think Tanks, CEDA, Melbourne, 1995, p Philip Mendes, Australian Neo-liberal Think Tanks and the Backlash Against the Welfare State, Journal of Australian Political Economy, No. 51, 2003, p Roy Green and Andrew Wilson, 'Labor's Trojan Horse: the 'Third Way' on Employment Policy' in Dennis Glover and Glenn Patmore (eds), New Voices for Social Democracy; Labor Essays , Pluto Press, Annandale, 1999, p.73.

20 8 These many assertions are often based upon little evidence. Indeed, despite numerous journalistic articles on the topic, there exists little scholarly analysis of the impact of the Australian new right or radical neo-liberal movement. This thesis offers both a framework for evaluating the impact and influence of the radical neoliberal movement that of hegemony as well as providing a detailed examination of a few key areas in which the movement attempted to intervene. There are several advantages to using hegemony as a framework for interpreting the movement s impact. Focussing upon struggles for hegemony allows account to be taken of the movement s contribution to discursive shifts and ideological conflicts, rather than merely its involvement in the policy process. Given that hegemony represents one aspect of class struggle, such an approach also allows attention to be focussed on the significance of the movement s relationship with capital. Rather than simply inferring the movement s impact by comparing its policy prescriptions with actual policy changes, as suggested by Murray and Pacheo, 14 this thesis outlines a theoretical framework for understanding such changes, and then undertakes a detailed analysis of the movement s impact within the arenas of the capitalist class, the mainstream commercial media and the state. The argument developed in this thesis is that the radical neo-liberal movement played the role of a vanguard for neoliberal hegemony in Australia. Often acting through think tanks, the radical neoliberals helped to disorganise the opposition to neo-liberalism; helped shift political debate in Australia to the Right; and provided a language and framework for critiquing the welfare state and for justifying neo-liberalism. I argue that primarily though its links with capital was the radical neo-liberal movement able to overcome its relatively small and narrow participant base to have a hegemonic impact in Australia. The use of hegemonic theory as a framework for understanding changes in Australian capitalism is unusual. Despite interest in studies of hegemony in the late 14 Georgina Murray and Douglas Pacheo, Think Tanks in the 1990s, p. 10, Marxist Interventions Website, < at 25th May, 2001.

21 9 1970s and early 1980s 15 recent scholarship has been largely devoid of such concerns. 16 In understanding the impact of the radical neo-liberals, the use of hegemonic theory is even more scant. 17 Internationally, however, the study of hegemony has burgeoned. More importantly, a number of scholars have employed theories of hegemony to help understand both the shifts from welfare to neo-liberal capitalism internationally, 18 as well as to theorise overseas manifestations of the new right. 19 So, while this thesis is relatively novel in its use of theories of hegemony as a framework for understanding both the major changes in Australian capitalism and the impact of the radical neo-liberal movement, such a framework will be developed through drawing on the substantial international literature on the subject. In developing a framework for understanding elite social movements and then examining the impact of one particular elite social movement, this thesis adds to the literature on social movements. Social movement literature has tended to focus upon movements of subordinated groups, whilst studies focussing on neo-liberalism or the 15 Sere for example: R. W. Connell, Ruling Class, Ruling Culture: Studies of Conflict, Power and Hegemony in Australian Life, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1977; R. W. Connell and T. H. Irving, Class Structure in Australian History: Documents, Narrative and Argument, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1980; Alistair Davidson, Antonio Gramsci: Towards and Intellectual Biography, Merlin Press, London, See however Ed Kaptein, Neo-liberalism and the Dismantling of Corporatism in Australia in Henk Overbeek (ed), Restructuring Hegemony in the Global Political Economy: The Rise of Transnational Neo-liberalism in the 1980s, Routledge, London, 1993, pp ; Stephen Bell, Ungoverning the Economy: The Political Economy of Australian Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1997, pp But see Boris Frankel, From the Prophets Deserts Come: The Struggle to Reshape Australian Political Culture, Arena Publishing, North Carlton, 1992, pp Henk Overbeek (ed), Restructuring Hegemony in the Global Political Economy: The Rise of Transnational Neo-liberalism in the 1980s; William Carroll and Murray Shaw, Consolidating a Neoliberal Policy Bloc in Canada, , Canadian Public Policy, Vol. 27, No. 2, 2001, pp ; Stuart Hall, The Toad in the Garden: Thatcherism Among the Theorists in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Macmillan Education, London, 1988, pp ; Colin Hay, Housing Policy in Transition: From the Post-war Settlement Towards a Thatcherite Hegemony, Capital and Class, Spring 1992, pp ; Colin Hay, Re-

22 10 new right have tended to concentrate their attention on think tanks and elite actors, rather than viewing these as cohering through a movement. The thesis contributes to the international literature on hegemony by developing, in Chapter One, a multilevelled model of hegemony and using it to understand the major shifts in hegemony that occurred in Australia in the transformation from welfare to neo-liberal capitalism. In its analysis of the major changes that occurred within Australian capitalism from the 1970s until the 1990s, this thesis also contributes to international understanding of neo-liberalism. The thesis draws upon contemporary literature to develop an understanding of neo-liberalism that goes beyond the simplistic notion of neo-liberalism as a reduction in the power and size of the state. Rather this thesis seeks to understand neo-liberalism as a manifestation of class struggle, and an attempt to transfer greater power to capital and shift resources from the public to private sectors. Methodology There are inevitable limitations in undertaking a thesis such as this. First, there is the physical limitation that, due to the movement being a relatively recent phenomenon, and due to its semi-clandestine nature, important details of the movement s activities do not exist on the public record. Primary documentation regarding minutes of meetings of the movement s think tanks, the financial record of think tanks and the personal papers of movement activists are not housed in publicly accessible archives. As a non-participant in the movement, and as one unsympathetic to the movement s framework, I have had little success in gaining access to such documents. During the research for this thesis I wrote to major movement organisations, requesting details of their funding and access to their archives and files. These requests were all either denied or ignored. Therefore, in addition to secondary sources, this thesis relies upon the published output of radical neo-liberal organisations and activists, interviews with movement activists, interviews with key

23 11 figures from other major social groups regarding their relationships with the movement, limited primary documentation of movement activities that is held in the archives of employer associations and of the IPA. 20 The second limitation is that imposed by the length of the thesis itself. Given the enormity of the radical neo-liberal movement s activities during the period under review, and given the need to establish a framework for understanding the movement, the analysis of the movement s relationship with struggles to secure neoliberal hegemony undertaken here cannot hope to be comprehensive. It is for this reason that the study has been limited to surveying the period between 1976 and marks the beginnings of the movement while 1996 has been chosen as the end point because it marks the election of the Howard Coalition government federally. This is significant because existing evidence indicates that the role of the radical neo-liberal movement changes somewhat at this time. Ending the thesis at this point allows for consideration of the movement s relationship with the key changes that occurred in the neo-liberal transformation of the Australian state and economy, and allows an indicative discussion of the changes in the movement s relationship with the government and bureaucracy after The final limitation of this thesis concerns the difficulties in accounting for influence and impact. One of the enduring difficulties for social movement research has been to articulate methods for evaluating the impact of movements. As Marco Guigni points out, the main difficulty has been the problem of causality, that is, how to establish a causal link between a given movement and an observed change. 21 It is tempting, for example, when considering the impact of the radical neo-liberal movement, to identify the movement s agenda and then match this against changes 20 Although the IPA archive at the Noel Butlin Archives Centre does not contain internal documents for the period under review here, it does contain primary documents from the Australian Lecture Foundation, another movement organisation. 21 Marco Giugni, How Social Movements Matter: Past Research, Present Problems, Future Developments in Marco Giugni, Doug McAdam and Charles Tilly (eds), How Social Movements Matter, University of Minneapolis Press, Minneapolis, 1999, p. xxiv.

24 12 in state policy that have occurred during the lifetime of the movement. This approach tells us little if anything about the role of the radical neo-liberal movement in bringing about such changes. It is possible, for example, that there were other sources of the ideas in question as well as other interests contributing to the identified changes. What is required instead is an explicit framework for the evaluation of the impact of the radical neo-liberal movement. The advantage of viewing the impact of the radical neo-liberal movement through the analytical lens of hegemony is that a framework can be developed for identifying the key components of efforts to secure hegemony. In this thesis these components are referred to as the constitutive components of hegemony and they are discussed in Chapter One. The contours of the struggle to reshape hegemony can then be mapped and, through detailed examination of the movement s relationship with key social institutions, the contribution of the movement to these process can be suggested. The analysis therefore will proceed in the following manner: 1. a framework for understanding hegemony, elite social movements and class conflict will be developed; 2. the core ideas, discursive practices, aims and tactics of the radical neo-liberal movement will be identified; 3. the broad counters of hegemonic struggles in Australia from will be outlined; 4. the relationships between the radical neo-liberal movement and other key groups and institutions involved in hegemonic struggles (the capitalist class, the labour movement, political parties, the bureaucracy, state apparatuses and the mainstream commercial media) will be identified and critically evaluated; 5. conclusions will then be drawn about the relationship between the radical neo-liberal movement and struggles to secure hegemony for neo-liberalism in Australia. It will be argued that the radical neo-liberal movement played a

25 13 vanguard role in this process: rather than directing the process of neo-liberal change the movement was at the forefront of attacks upon the old hegemonic order of welfare capitalism and its defenders. Thesis structure Chapter One outlines the theoretical framework that will be employed to analyse the radical neo-liberal movement and its relationship with struggles for hegemony. After discussing the notion of hegemony in a general sense, the chapter develops a multidimensional model for understanding hegemonic struggle and consolidation. The notion of non-class agents and class relevant impacts are developed in order to account for the relevance of elite social movements to struggles for hegemony. Finally, Chapter One develops the concept of elite social movements and offers some similarities and differences with social movements as traditionally understood. Chapters Two and Three examine the radical neo-liberal movement itself. Chapter Two discusses the ideology of the radical neo-liberal movement: its beliefs, assumptions, rhetoric and antecedents. The movement s core values are examined and this provides a basis for understanding the movement s utopian policy agenda. Attempts by the movement to reconcile the inevitable contradictions between radical neo-liberal and conservative ideologies are also examined. Chapter Three analyses how it is that the radical neo-liberals cohere as a movement. It looks at how the movement has developed over time, and examines radical neo-liberal think tanks the mobilising structures of the movement. After outlining the major tactics employed by the movement to contest hegemony, the chapter discusses the dynamics of the relationship between the radical neo-liberal movement and those conservative intellectuals with whom an alliance existed throughout the 1980s but who would later become prominent critics of the movement.

26 14 Chapter Four links the Chapter Two and Three with the final section of the thesis by outlining the hegemonic context within which the radical neo-liberal movement emerged, grew and attempted to bring about a radical restructuring of common sense. In order to provide a basis for understanding the relationship between the movement and other key actors in struggles for neo-liberal hegemony, Chapter Four focuses upon the changing dynamics of the capitalist class and the Australian state from 1976 to It is argued that, from the 1970s onwards, key fractions of capital mobilised in order to bring about a neo-liberal restructuring of the Australia state and economy. Chapters Five, Six and Seven examine the relationship between the radical neoliberal movement and some of the major sites of hegemonic struggle and some of the key agents of such struggles. Chapter Five investigates the movement s relationship with the Australian capitalist class. As well as discussing the movement s impact upon Australian capital, this chapter reveals that key fractions of capital were crucial to the emergence, longevity and impact of the radical neo-liberal movement in Australia. Chapter Six analyses the relationship between the radical neo-liberal and the mainstream news media in Australia. A case study of the Fairfax media s coverage of the movement, and of the movement s access to the Fairfax media, provides the basis for drawing conclusions about the movement s relationship with the broader commercial media in Australia. It is argued that the commercial media in Australia was an important and sympathetic vehicle for the widespread dissemination of radical neo-liberal discourse and ideology. Chapter Seven examines the impact of the radical neo-liberal movement upon some of the major institutions of the Australian state: the bureaucracy; the major political parties; and the pubic education system. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which the radical neoliberal movement was instrumental in the Coalition s embrace of neo-liberalism, and was used by successive Labor governments as a convenient way of legitimating their own, less radical, neo-liberal program.

27 15 From the examination undertaken throughout these chapters it is concluded that the radical neo-liberal movement played a vanguard role in the struggles to secure hegemony for neo-liberalism in Australia until Although the neo-liberal restructuring of the Australian state and economy would have proceeded without its appearance, the radical neo-liberal movement helped neutralise opposition and open up a discursive space in which neo-liberalism could be inscribed onto the discursive terrain of common sense.

28 16 Chapter 1 Hegemony, Class Conflict and Elite Social Movements As stated in the Introduction, this thesis analyses the relationship between an elite social movement and struggles for hegemony. It analyses the role of the radical neoliberal movement in attempts to secure hegemony for neo-liberalism in Australia. In order to undertake such an analysis it is first necessary to outline a theoretical framework for understanding the key concepts of hegemony and elite social movements. This chapter outlines a framework for understanding the terrain and dynamics of hegemonic struggles and then examines some of the key agents particularly classes and elite social movements involved in such struggles. An important feature of the battles for hegemony examined in this thesis is that they occur within the framework of a relatively stable capitalist hegemony. From the late 1970s until the mid 1990s in Australia, the hegemony of the capitalist organisation of society was never seriously threatened. Rather, what occurred were struggles over the ways in which the Australian capitalist state was organised. Specifically, the hegemony of the Keynesian welfare state was challenged by a series of neo-liberal, counter-hegemonic projects. Attempts were made to win consent within the state and throughout the broader population for a new set of state-labour-capital relationships, but ones that remained fundamentally capitalist in nature. This chapter provides tools for understanding such phenomena by developing a framework which recognises distinct but related levels of hegemony, in which hegemony can be threatened or overturned at one level while remaining secure at other levels. Given its importance as both a key site, and object of, the struggles for hegemony analysed in this thesis, the capitalist state and its relationship to hegemony is also discussed.

29 17 The central dynamic of struggles to secure hegemony is that of class conflict. Classes however are not the sole agents of hegemony, and classes themselves are not monolithic. Within classes there often develop class fractions with their own distinct sets of interests. Hegemony therefore reflects the outcomes not only of class conflict, but intra-class conflict as well. This chapter discusses the notion of class fractions and takes a critical approach to the issue of class interests. It is also necessary to account for how movements, which do not neatly fit into the class conflict schema, can be agents of change. Specifically, what relevance might nonclass actors, such as elite social movements, have to struggles over the hegemony of a particular form of capitalism: neo-liberal capitalism? While retaining the centrality of class conflict to hegemonic struggle, this chapter posits that social agents who are not class belonging can nonetheless engage in struggles that are class relevant. Unfortunately, there is little literature which deals explicitly with elite social movements the central non-class agent studied in this thesis. Academic literature on new social movements tends to focus upon mass movements of the oppressed, thus excluding consideration of elite social movements from its conceptual frame. Through a critical analysis of the new social movement paradigm, this chapter outlines the differences between new social movements and elite social movements. However, it is also argued that new social movement theory provides useful tools for understanding the internal dynamics of elite social movements and, as such, this chapter draws upon social movement theory to sketch an outline of the characteristics of elite social movements.

30 18 Theorising Hegemony Hegemony refers to the organisation of consent in capitalist society. Specifically, hegemony is the organisation of consent to a particular set of class relations. 1 The notion of hegemony is most often associated with the work of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Although the term hegemony pre-dates Marxism 2 and in Marxist theory pre-dates Gramsci 3 Gramsci used the notion of hegemony to develop a unique account of the dynamics of capitalist society. Gramsci attempted to explain not only why the European working class had not been able to bring about a working class revolution, but also how it was that fascism was in the ascendancy. This dilemma, what Stuart Hall calls Gramsci s question, 4 led Gramsci to develop an understanding of capitalism in which class power is exercised and contested through culture, as well as through physical force, violence and coercion, as understood by traditional Marxism. Hegemony, then, is the organisation of consent primarily through non-coercive means. One of the reasons that Gramsci survives as a theorist of continuing interest is the richness of his work. No doubt another reason is that Gramsci s writing is often riddled with ambiguities and imprecision. 5 The reason for this is that Gramsci s richest work was undertaken during his ten year internment in fascist prison. Ill health and prison conditions meant that Gramsci s prison writings do not constitute a completed body of work. In order that his writings were not identified as Marxist by prison authorities, Gramsci engaged in self-censorship. 6 Gramsci was also writing primarily about social conditions specific to Italy of the 1920s and 1930s, so 1 In this context, consent can also refer to the absence of opposition. 2 Raymond Williams, Keywords: a Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Fontana, Glasgow, 1981, pp Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards and Radical Democratic Politics, Verso, London, 2001, pp Stuart Hall, Postscript: Gramsci and Us in Roger Simon, Gramsci s Political Thought: An Introduction, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1991, p See for example Perry Anderson, The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci, New Left Review, No. 100, November January 1977, pp Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, Preface, in Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, International Publishers, New York, 1999, pp. xiii-xiv.

31 19 applying his analysis to other national contexts and other historical periods is difficult. Furthermore, the traditional major text in English that has been used by Gramsci-scholars is Gramsci s Selections from the Prison Notebooks, which is an edited version of original Italian text, the content of which was posthumously arranged by topic. Translations of the full Prison Notebooks, as they were compiled by Gramsci himself, have only recently become available in English. So, while Gramsci s work is incredibly rich in content, deriving from it a comprehensive and consistent theory of capitalist society is still a difficult task. What makes the task somewhat easier is the wealth of literature that has appeared in English during the last three decades devoted to explicating Gramsci s theories and applying them to contemporary capitalist society. Gramsci s theory of hegemony expands upon Marx and Engels argument that The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas. 7 In hegemony, Gramsci provides the mechanism whereby this occurs. However, what sets Gramsci s work apart from traditional Marxism is that he goes beyond the deterministic schema that the economic base determines the cultural and political superstructure. Hegemony, the organisation of consent to a particular configuration of class relations, cannot simply be deduced from the economic superstructure of any given period. Rather, as Stuart Hall writes: Hegemony is constructed through a complex series or process of struggle. It is not given, either in the existing structure of a society or in the given class structure of a mode of production. 8 The achievement of hegemony is contingent upon outcome of struggles for political, ideological and economic dominance in a given society at a given time. Such 7 K. Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1976, p Stuart Hall, The Toad in the Garden: Thatcherism Among the Theorists', p. 53.

32 struggles can have unintended and unpredictable consequences, which means that hegemony rarely follows a pre-ordained road map What makes Gramsci s theory of hegemony so useful for analysing really existing capitalist relations is his focus upon agency. Society is not static and neither is hegemony. Therefore, hegemony involves a constant process of struggle and negotiation: The overall picture that Gramsci provides is not one of ruling class domination. Rather it is a society in constant process, where the creation of counter-hegemonic strategies remains open. 10 Furthermore, in order to maintain its dominant position, the dominant class must, if it does not wish to rely upon coercion as the primary means of governance, incorporate, at least to some extent, the interests of other social groups into its hegemonic project: Undoubtedly the fact of hegemony presupposes that account be taken of the interests and the tendencies of the groups over which hegemony is to be exercised, and that a certain compromise equilibrium should be formed in other words, that the leading group should make sacrifices of an economic-corporate kind. But there is also no doubt that such sacrifices and such a compromise cannot touch the essential; for though hegemony is ethical-political, it must also be economic, must necessarily 9 A similar point is made by William Carroll: The organisation of consent is not deduced as a functional necessity: it arises as a contingent accomplishment, incorporating a mixture of strategic interventions and unintended consequences in William Carroll, Restructuring Capital, Reorganising Consent: Gramsci, Political Economy, and Canada, Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, Vol. 27, No. 3, August 1990, p T. J. Jackson Lears, 'The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities', The American Historical Review, Vol. 90, No. 3, June 1985, p. 571.

33 21 be based on the decisive function exercised by the leading group in the decisive nucleus of economic activity. 11 From this quotation, it is clear that hegemony, for Gramsci, is ultimately based upon class interests. Hegemony, however, is not simply reducible to class interest, and the need to incorporate the demands and interests of other groups necessarily creates contradictions. The strength of a hegemonic project is the extent to which such contradictions can be concealed or reconciled. The danger, however, is that the very existence of such contradictions throws open the possibility of counter-hegemonic strategies. Thus, agency is an integral feature of hegemonic struggle. Whilst the capitalist class structure provides the framework within which hegemonic struggles take place, the terrain of such struggles is constantly shifting and is created through the conflict and interactions of a variety of agents: such as workers, capitalists, intellectuals, movements, unions and employer associations. Hegemonic theory, then, provides conceptual tools with which to theorize practice within a dialectic of structure and agency. 12 It is clear from the preceding analysis that hegemony is always contested, even if only weakly. Hegemony is therefore never a system of total capitalist domination. T. J. Jackson Lears proposes that hegemony operates within a spectrum between open and closed: the more open the hegemonic relations the more susceptible they are to counter-hegemonic strategies; the more closed the hegemonic relations the more resilient they are to resistance and the fewer opportunities there are for counterhegemonic strategies. 13 But a hegemonic system is never completely closed, and even in a relatively closed system, strategies of resistance are possible. It is important to distinguish hegemony from mere ideology or ideological domination. First, hegemony is power exercised primarily through non-coercive 11 Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, p William Carroll, Restructuring Capital, Reorganising Consent: Gramsci, Political Economy, and Canada, p T. J. Jackson Lears, 'The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities', pp